INTEGRATING FEMININE AND MASCULINE

I'd been having some awareness about integrating the inner masculine and feminine.

I seen in meditation that the two altars I'd most recently created had the same form, the female form, with womb containing egg, ovaries and birth canal. In the second altar I added a tall vase and placed the egg into it (it looked pretty phallic from the side! Did I unconsciously bring the masculine into the feminine?!)

I'd also became aware in meditation that this second altar mirrored the shape of the Callanais standing stones, on the Isle of Lewis, the shape of celtic cross, with a circle where the horizontal and vertical meet, with a tall stone at the centre (the masculine in the feminine? )

All this awareness and because the theme of integrating the inner feminine and masculine was coming up in my dream group, I was inspired to hold ceremony.

I opened to what the ceremony wanted to be, inspiration dropping in... intention, outline, rituals, etc.

And gathering all I thought I'd need, I took myself off to the beach with an idea of what the ceremony might be, open to also letting it unfold and be what it wanted to be in the moment.

I drew a circle in the sand and marked the directions with shell, stone, seaweed and stick.

I stepped into the circle and called on the directions and the elements, called in Spirit and all that supports me. I set my intention. 

I brought together crystals of chrysocolla and chrysoprase (which together balance the feminine and  masculine) and hung them around my neck.

I mixed a selection of oils - the ones I was guided to to represent the feminine and masculine. I used the blended oils to anoint my feet. My plan was to draw symbols of feminine and masculine, one on each foot (echoing a ritual from a previous ceremony), but what came was to blend the symbols and draw one symbol which integrated both the feminine and masculine on both feet.

I twisted my body backwards and forwards, something I've been guided to do in the past, when feeling into how to integrate different parts of me.

And I drank plantain tea, plantain being an hermaphrodite, having both female and male parts.

I made an offering of the remaining tea and oils to the earth, in gratitude, thanking all I'd called in.

And with a final 'Sea!' (pronounced 'sha' meaning 'so it is' in Gaelic) I stepped out of the circle with a sense of what was needed being done.

I erased the circle, moving the direction markers.

Immediately as I sat on the beach, I noticed the noisy calls of the birds. They seemed to be in mating dance ritual! The oyster catchers on the beach, dancing and calling out to one another; the diver rising up out of the sea, calling and flapping his wings.  As I swam in the sea, the seals on the rocks were also very vocal and I wondered if they were mating!

I love when the world seems to respond to ceremony with magic and wee synchronicities! Was this a message from the Universe that my intention had been heard?

Later I realised that two other rituals I'd held that day, which I'd thought were separate, were all part of integrating the feminine and the masculine too!

Before the ceremony on the beach, I had buried an egg, to finish a ritual which was part of an Ostara ceremony I'd co-hosted the weekend before. Burying the egg represented letting go of all that gets in the way for me... letting go of obstacles which hinder me in manifesting my hopes and dreams... giving those obstacles to the earth... to the Goddess...

Still on the beach, after the ceremony and a swim, using the stick with which I had marked one of the directions, I made a 'clooty stick' of hopes and dreams.  My husband joined me in this ritual. We wrote on ribbons ('cloots') all we wanted to manifest. We had planned to tie them to the tail of a kite and fly them in the wind, but unusually for Skye there was no wind, so instead we made clooty sticks. When mine was made I ran around the beach waving it!

I hadn't intended for the egg and the clooty stick rituals to be part of the integrating feminine and masculine ceremony.  When I started, they felt like three distinct things, but afterwards I could see the flow between them ... from the letting go of obstacles... to integrating the feminine and masculine parts of me (perhaps key)... to manifesting my hopes and dreams in the world.

I also saw the symbolism of the feminine and masculine in the egg and the stick! Having lived much of the first half of my life in my masculine energy, I wondered if the pendulum had swung too far to the feminine. Perhaps integrating my inner feminine and masculine for me, at that point in time, meant reducing my feminine and increasing my masculine. What could represent that more than inadvertantly adding rituals to my ceremony of burying an egg and waving a stick around?!

I love how even when we're consciously creating ceremony, the ceremony is creating us!